[Mithalwen]

Sorry I would have replied sooner but this links into something that I have been thinking about since I finally bought the letters at Oxonmoot and I needed to look one up. BTW Lal, I would never have the nerve to be timewaster.. even if I could pull off the eccentric millionaire with bad back facade (how else to explain driving an ancient Fiat and wanting to buy a bungalow at my relatively tender age?).

Letter 279 was written at the end of 1965 to Grandson Michael, and discusses his financial situation and states that flats and bungalows in sight of the sea were selling for thousands even up to £15,000+ . The average house price then was £4,000 now it is £190,000....

However the Tolkiens' bungalow, ugly as it is, is not average and wouldn't have been then. I would think that where it is was then, is it is now, in the most expensive area to have a seaside home since it is just up the road from Sandbanks ( for Americans I imagine the equivalent would be the Hamptons, or Boca Raton?) . I imagine they would have had to pay the best part of that £15K

As a comparison my parents bought their house, an older chalet bungalow, for about £5,000 in 1968. Now it is of comparable size overall, maybe on a larger plot, as close to the sea, and in a good but far less exclusive and expensive area (though with more amenities closer) a few miles along the coast. It is still worth about a third of the Lakeside Road property.

So the Tolkiens' could have got the sea views and a comparable house for literally a fraction of the price, so I wonder why they didn't. While their house has a lovely setting it is not a practical location for frail and elderly non drivers. There is no corner shop or post office, Westbourne is a mile and a half uphill and it is the other side of town from their beloved Miramar. Everywhere would be a taxi ride.

I also discovered that Tolkien's surviving schoolfriend Christopher Wiseman retired to the next village to us, Milford on Sea. This is a delightful village with even now a good range of proper shops, small hospital, a catholic church, and the journey to the Miramar would be only 15-20 minutes longer .

The advantages of the Bournemouth location, apart from slightly quicker access to main transport links and medical facilities, is the anonymity. A famous author would be far more conspicuous in the villages and privacy seems to have been a major concern. In an exclusive area where everyone is rich and generally has made their own money, they would have been much more able to keep a lower profile. And there would be less of the snobbery that was (and to a lesser extent still is) a feature of the Lymington area (cough*Argos*cough) .

Finally there may well have been tax advantages of putting as much money as possible into their home.

PS Another letter is an enquiry from someone who picked up one of his old book in a Salibury bookshop...